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Released by: Mill Creek Entertainment
Released on: March 22nd, 2022.
Director: Various
Cast: Tom Selleck, John Hillerman, Roger Mosely, Larry Manetti
Year: 19
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Magnum PI: The Complete Series – Movie Review:
I know I'm not the only one who would tune in religiously to watch Magnum P. I. once a week during the eighties. In fact, even after the show was done I still used to catch the repeats in syndication after school on weekday afternoons, primarily because a my stepfather was, and continues to remain these many years later, obsessed with the show. Regardless, for whatever reason, during my pre-pubescent years, the thrilling adventures of a former Vietnam veteran turned private investigator in the exotic locales of Hawaii really caught my interest. Having not really spent much time with Mr. Thomas Sullivan Magnum III in the last decades, however, I wasn't sure how it would all hold up over the years. Thankfully, this complete series Blu-ray collection put those fears to rest and I found that the show still manages to make for an entertaining time killer.
For those of you who have been living in a cave or simply just weren't around in the eighties, the series followed the aforementioned Thomas Magnum (Tom Selleck and his mighty moustache, which really should have gotten its own on screen credit in each and every episode) who happened to work as the guy in charge of security for a rich cat named Mr. Robin Masters. When he wasn't keeping things safe on the fancy schmancy estate, he was running his own business as a private investigator and out there solving crimes for a myriad of different clients, many of whom happened to be hot chicks.
Magnum doesn't really fly solo though – Jonathon Higgins (played with exemplary smugness by John Hillerman) is in charge of making sure that Magnum does his job properly and seeing that his former service in the British army has made him a bit of a 'rules fanatic' he tends to be a thorn in Magnum's side from time to time. Oddly enough, a few of Magnum's former war pals have also made Hawaii their home. When he gets in too thick, he's not afraid to call in a favor or two and his buddies T. C. (Roger Mosely who was in The Mack oddly enough) and Rick (Larry Manetti who appeared opposite Pamela Anderson in Snapdragon!) will come running to help him out whenever they can.
That's more or less the setup for the show. Between his job keeping the lovely estate where he resides safe and sound from unwanted intruders and the work he does for his various clients, Magnum keeps pretty busy even when he just wants to kick back and relax a little bit. The various clients provided all sorts of different reasons for Magnum to get into trouble and it was because of this that the series usually stayed pretty fresh and interesting despite being fairly formulaic.
What really made Magnum P. I. work though was the cast. Sure, the Hawaiian locations gave the series a much prettier backdrop than most private detective shows had (and it also allowed the producers to throw in some stock footage here and there to pad things out a little bit and give us a better idea of how Hawaii looks, I suppose) which does set the series apart from other similar TV series. However, even those gorgeous shots of the jungle fauna and the ocean beaches get old, fast. It's the cast that makes this series work, and Tom Selleck has to get a lot of credit for that. While his career hasn't exactly sky rocketed since the show went off the air (though neither has it crashed and burned like a lot of eighties TV stars, he’s worked regularly ever since it went off the air) he really was perfect for the lead role. The ladies loved him for his look and his coolness and the guys liked him for his smoothness with the women who came into his life and for his skills behind the wheel of his Ferrari. The interplay between Magnum and Higgins always allowed the series to explore some fun and effective comedic ground and the friendship between Magnum and his friends was always infectious and entertaining. At the same time, the performers, even the supporting players, were good enough that when the storylines called for more dramatic turns, they were able to deliver the goods and everything stayed reasonably believable, at least by the not always so believable standards of an eighties private detective show.
While the series does show its roots as an eighties program (the fashions, musical score, and vehicles give it away instantly) the show does prove to hold up as a solid detective series and because of this it does definitely have quite a bit of replay value. As the series progresses, characters are better established, their motivations and intricacies more apparent and understandable, and the action and drama in the scripts is tighter and more believable because of that.
The series ran for eight seasons from 1980 through 1988, and lasted one hundred and sixty-two episodes. Through its run, the series also featured some pretty fun guest stars, such as Carol Burnett, Shannon Doherty, Carol Channing, John Saxon, Chuck Mangione, Jenny Agutter, James Doohan, Erin Gray, Alan Hale Jr., Ernest Borgnine, Dick Butkus, Scatman Crothers, Tyne Daly, Darren McGavin, Ted Danson, Norman Fell, Morgan Fairchild, Pat Morita, Jose Ferrer, Miguel Ferrer, Robert Forster, Robert Loggia, Patrick Macnee, Vic Morrow, Annie Potts, Mako, Ian McShane, Vera Miles, Cameron Mitchell, Judge Reinhold, Alfonso Ribeiro, Sharon Stone and none other than Frank Sinatra (in an episode that features Phil Collins’ ‘Tonight’ featured prominently!)!
There was even a crossover episode where Angela Lansbury showed up as Jessica Fletcher from Murder, She Wrote! and another crossover episode where Gerald McRaney and Jameson Parker showed up as Rick And A.J. Simon from Simon & Simon. Sadly, the episodes of Murder, She Wrote and Simon & Simon that served as the first parts of these two stories are not included here (it was probably a rights issue).
Magnum PI: The Complete Series – Blu-ray Review:
Mill Creek Entertainment brings Magnum PI: The Complete Series to region A Blu-ray in AVC encoded 1080p high definition with every episode framed in its original 1.33.1 aspect ratio. Spread across thirty dual-layered 50GB discs, the picture quality here is pretty solid for the first few seasons but the later seasons do look to have had some digital noise reduction applied to the transfers (at one point the series went from being edited on film to being edited on tape and that might explain why the earlier episodes look noticeably better). Compression is occasionally problematic, you’ll spot some artifacts throughout but major macroblocking or anything like that is rare. The elements used here were clearly pristine, there’s no print damage at all and we get nice colors and solid black levels. Skin tones also generally look fine.
Each episode of the series features a 24-bit DTS-HD 2.0 audio track in its native English. English subtitles are also provided for each episode. No problems to note with the audio on the episodes that were sampled for this review. The tracks are clean, clear and nicely balanced with easily discernable dialogue and a decent low end (you’ll hear it when a gun goes off or the Ferrari revs into high gear). The iconic opening theme song, which still kicks a fair bit of ass, also sounds pretty strong here.
There’s quite a lot of extra content in this set, starting with the two episodes of The Rockford Files that Tom Selleck appeared on as a character named Lance White - White on White and Nearly Perfect (Season 5, Episode 4) and Nice Guys Finish Dead (Season 6, Episode 6).
Disc three of season seven includes a new Interview with Writer/Producer/Director Reuben Leder that lasts for just under twelve minutes. He talks about getting his start on low budget exploitation films like I Dismember Mama and A.P.E. before then getting work writing The Incredible Hulk TV series for Universal, which led to his then getting assigned to Magnum P.I. in the middle of a writer's strike. He talks about working with the series' producers, Glen A. Larson's original script, staging the series as a procedural, what the different assistant director's did on the shoot, the rushed schedules of this and other TV productions, having to rewrite some other writers' episodes during his Christmas vacation, wanting to show that not every Vietnam vet was damaged goods and a fair bit more.
Writer/Producer Chris Abbott is interviewed for thirteen minutes. She talks about trying to get a career as an actress but when it didn't work, then getting into screenwriting and writing her own scripts. She then talks about working on Little House On The Prairie before moving on to Magnum P.I., how everyone assumed she was a male and being okay with that, writing parts for some pretty iconic guest stars, trying to bring a little philosophy to the character of Thomas Magnum as well as some humor, working some real life elements into the series, the importance of being able to write scenes without exposition, wanting to kill of Magnum at the end of the show and how she feels about the series overall.
The third interview on the disc is with Actress/Writer Deborah Pratt and it lasts ten minutes. She talks about how there wasn't a lot of roles for people of her ethnicity and skin color around the time that the series was made, some of the early parts she had before Magnum like Airwolf, landing the part on Magnum P.I. and going to Hawaii to shoot, meeting and getting along with the entire cast, getting into writing by penning and episode of Airwolf and then writing two episodes for Magnum P.I., trying to talk Tom Selleck into doing the episode where he's basically a single parent, her thoughts on the quality of the post-production work on the series, working with some of the guest stars on the show like Sharon Stone and how working on the series in general was really a pleasure.
Disc four of season seven also contains some extra features, archival ones, starting with The Great 80's TV Flashback, a fun twenty-nine documentary made in 2006 that explores some of the better known shows of the decade after which it is titled. If you've picked up any of the other recent Universal 80s TV releases, like Charles In Charge or The A-Team then you've seen this before but if not it is an enjoyable, albeit very short, look at some of the highs and lows of Universal's 80s TV properties.
Inside the Ultimate Crime Crossover is a six minute piece that covers how the series crossover with Murder, She Wrote came to be by way of interviews with Angela Lansbury, Writer Robert Swanson, Producer Charles Floyd Johnson and Writer Jay Hugluey. They talk about what went into creating the story and how Magnum provided the muscle while Jessica provided the mystery.
America's Top Sleuths is a thirty-minute documentary that was made to promote the Sleuth TV show. It goes over twenty-five crime solving finalists and declares one the winner based on viewer voting. It's fairly promotional in nature and not very deep but it's an entertaining enough look back at some fun old detective and cop shows.
Disc one of season eight features and audio commentary with writer Jay Huguely over the Pleasure Principle episode. He talks about working as a writer and producer for five years and then returning to the show as a creative consultant on this episode. As the talk moves forward, he covers how he got his start on the show, working the back story from the last episode of season seven into this episode's plot, toying with the idea of letting Magnum die at the end of season seven when they didn't know if the show was coming back for an eighth run, how the eighth season wasn't given a thumbs up until the very last minute, using the idea of hallucinations in the episode, why Tanaka is on crutches in this episode and what went into making this one of the more unusual episodes of the series' run.
This disc also includes an interview with composer Mike Post that runs thirteen minutes. He talks about how he got into music, connecting with Stephen J. Cannell and getting his start scoring for TV with a project called Toma, working with Pete Carpenter, scoring The Rockford Files and then moving on to Magnum P.I., reconnecting with Tom Selleck who he went to school with, the quirks of translating elements of action and drama into music and trying to bring a sense of fun and adventure to the show's score and especially its iconic main theme.
Lastly, the disc includes a new Interview with Author C. Courtney Joyner on the career of Director Virgil Vogel that runs for six minutes. He talks about Vogel's uncle getting him a job in the editorial department of Universal Studios in 1939. From there, we learn how he climbed the ranks and worked on Abbott And Costello Meet The Invisible Man, edited Touch Of Evil for Orson Welles, how he approached TV work as episodic feature film work and then how he came to work on Magnum P.I. and Airwolf.
Disc two of season eight features a commentary with Jay Huguely on the Legend Of The Lost Art episode that covers the spoof/fantasy elements of the show and how it tied in to Tom Selleck's career - he was at one point considered for Indiana Jones but did the Magnum P.I. pilot only to get offered the role after signing a contract for play Magnum (and not being able to get out of it). As such, this episode plays as a spoof of Raiders Of The Lost Art, having fun with the script, working Higgins into the storyline, deliberately costuming Magnum as Indiana Jones and creating the perfect ending for the episode with an 'overdone death.'
Lastly, on the series’ finale, Resolutions Part Two, we get a commentary with Co-Executive Producer Chas Floyd Johnson. He speaks here about how he got his start on the series and worked his way up as it progressed, working on six of the eight seasons of the show, how much he loved being on location in Hawaii, some of the locations that were used, how much he enjoyed working on the series, following up season seven's ending on very short notice, knowing that season eight was going to be the final year for the series, trying their best to please the fans with the last season, trying to tie up as many loose ends as possible, learning about Hawaiian culture while working on the show, how well he got along with Tom Selleck first on The Rockford Files and then on Magnum P.I., the importance of Selleck's good looks and moustache, working tighter continuity into the final season, having a huge party once the series hit one hundred and fifty episodes with as many of the guest actors as they could get and plenty more.
Mill Creek has also done a pretty nice job with the packaging here. The discs sit inside three different larger sized Blu-ray cases that allow each individual disc to sit on its down spindle. When you line the three cases up together, the fronts connect to show a great cast picture and the backs connect to form a neat painted mural! All three of the larger cases then fit inside a side-loading box that admittedly could have been sturdier but which still manages to hold everything in place.
Magnum PI: The Complete Series – The Final Word:
Mill Creek has upped their game with their release of Magnum PI: The Complete Series. The transfers of the first few seasons generally look pretty good while the later ones less so, but we get strong audio and a pretty nice array of extra features to accompany some nice packaging. The series itself remains a lot of fun, an entertaining mix of action, adventure, mystery, drama and humor.